I am from Salamiya but none of this applies to me

In Syria, one could notice some of the significant remarks
denigrating others based on their
religion, sect, race or color. العربية

This
article by Abdullah
Amin Al-Hallaqforms
part of a special series focused on Oral Culture and Identity in
Syria. It
is the outcome of an ongoing partnership between SyriaUntold and
openDemocracy’s North Africa West Asia in a bid to untangle the
roots of sectarian, ethnic and other divides in Syria.

For
better or for worse, I am not sure which exactly, I was born in the
city of Salamiya, located in the heart of Syria to the east of Hama.
I am Ismaili by birth (Ismailism is a branch of Shia Islam). Both my
parents belong to the Ismaili faith but I am irreligious by
conviction. I follow secular tactics in my day-to-day life and apply
secular “strategies” to live in the world. I respect the right of
any person to believe—as well as not to believe—in any religion
or doctrine (although most believers do not respect or recognize our
rights to not believe). I respect that right provided they do not see
their sect or religion as the end of all righteousness, based on
supernatural and shamanistic ideologies firmly rooted in environments
still mired in superstitions.

Holding
one’s own sect in high regard was not shown publically in Syria,
perhaps due to the “Syrian mosaic” and “coexistence”
propaganda, which we experienced so clearly after the revolution!
However, one could notice some of the significant remarks that were
flourishing among the least educated in this or that community,
remarks denigrating to others. Denigrating others based on their
religion, sect, race or color is to a certain extent a pretension to
superiority based on one’s own sectarian or religious affiliation.
There
is no need to dwell on the obvious here: the need to not label an
entire group with one defining feature, and to be careful not to
attribute to the “whole” what only “some” of its members
might gossip about. For the purpose of this article, however, there
are some “rare” verbal narratives that are rather narrowly
circulated among “sectarian activists” in Syria worth mentioning.
These are precisely the type of narratives we need to be looking into
and writing about.

Salamiya
is a city in Syria where the Ismaili minority constitutes a majority
of its population. Six Shia imams, from Ali down to Ja’far
al-Sadiq, are the common denominator between “Sevener” Ismailis
and the largest branch of Shiite Islam, known as Twelvers. In a
country like Baathist and Assadist Syria, people were prohibited from
discussing politics as well as manifesting any sound or healthy
interest in fellow Syrians. Members of majority and minority
religious groups developed their own parochial oral histories
vis-a-vis other sects. These were often promoted by unfathomable
anecdotes of paranormal events and reinforced by walls or security
barriers which prevented Syrians from getting to know each other.

The
more educated classes, which regularly encountered other sections of
the Syrian populations, did not care about the “morning sermons”
passed down verbally by some “elders” who have long been
insulated within the confines of their sects and regions. But we
often heard these elders chatter about the Sunnis, the Alawites and
the Druze in ways that resembled the anecdotes one hears in Arabian
Nights.
I remember that the first folk proverb to be invoked in moments of
great injustice inflicted upon someone is “like a Nusayris
[an Alawite] beaten down in market.”

In
fact, I do not yet know the source or the original story of this
widespread saying in the Ismaili community, nor the location of the
market in which the above-mentioned “Nusayri” was dealt that
“beatdown.” Is it the Salamiya market? Hama market? Al-Hamidiyah
market?! The market is a variable that is open to speculations, but
what is constant is that an Alawite person was once subjected to a
physical assault so horrible that it became remarkably proverbial, a
“spiteful” remembrance that is nevertheless invoked to ease the
pain of someone being wronged.

Mockery
and ridicule

There
are additional sayings used by Ismailis, Sunnis and many others to
mock and ridicule the Alawites. One such saying is silk
bi-laban
[chard with yogurt], which is a rural dish made even in non-Alawite
villages, but has been associated with the Alawites when poking fun
at their lives and traditions. Another is shu’aybiya
wa kazuza [custard
in filo and soft drink], which refers to a poor Alawite descending
from his village, enjoying a shu’aybiya
with
a soft drink and considering that his utmost “model of luxury.”
These are only two examples of countless forms of mockery.

While
the Ismailis and the Sunnis share a similar view toward the Alawites,
the Ismailis are also viewed as a “one stereotypical whole,” most
famously as “the sect that worships vaginas.” This is another
widespread conviction among “Sunni” marginalized rural groups,
which rely on communal anecdotes and hereditary myths to learn about
the sectarian or religious other, which is in this case the Ismailis.

This
allegation of an Ismaili cult serves a twofold purpose. On the one
hand, it obscures the fact that Ismailis worship Allah, just like
other Muslims. On the other, it is used to vilify the Ismaili faith
and reduce it to “vaginas,” at which point infidelity, atheism or
paganism become too nice a “charge” when compared with the
above-mentioned worship. Perhaps the most astute response to this
charge was that of the poet Ali al-Jundi, which is often repeated by
activists and young people from Salamiya. “Is it true that the
Ismailis worship vaginas?” the late poet was once asked, rather
jokingly, on the sidelines of a press interview. “Frankly, I have
no clue if the dignified sect worships it, but personally I do,”
al-Jundi replied.

Furthermore,
within the Ismaili “sphere,” there is another anti-Ismaili
slander propagated by Alawites, especially those who have reached
extreme old age. This is the term kalb
el fayy
[dog of shadows], which is grounded in the stereotyping notion that
Ismailis are too lazy and passive. “An Ismaili man rests in the
shadow, loosens his balls, and watches whoever comes by. If he ever
works a few minutes, he takes a three-hour break, whereas a villager
is a hard-working early riser.” It goes without saying that many
Ismailis are villagers and peasants as well.

Myth-making
and narrative wars

The
same smear tactic is used by other sects towards the Murshidi
[members of a religious community that split from the Alawite
tribes], such as the popularized rumor that they meet in a special
ritualistic evening to have an animalistic orgy between their men and
women. Indeed, sex has been and remains a primary myth-making tool in
this sectarian “war or narratives.”

In
the minds of the most ignorant and backward groups, for instance,
Sunnis are Bakris. Bakrism here is not an affiliation with the tribe
of Bakr or any other Arab tribe. It is simply a “charge” against
the Sunnis who believe in Abu Bakr’s entitlement to the first
caliph coronation, which is in the Alawite and Ismaili tradition an
entitlement of [the fourth caliph] Ali. In the same context, another
expression concerning major Sunni figures is Aisha
alhamra.
This invokes the description by Prophet Muhammad of [his youngest
wife] Aisha Bint Abu Bakr as humayraa
[rosy-complexed],
which is now used by Aisha’s haters, who are entrenched Ali’s
camp, to describe any “bitchy” woman as Aisha
alhamra.

One
could elaborate and research endlessly into this subject, which is
not the purpose of this article. Such hostile speech remained
confined to very narrow spaces, barely extending beyond its original
communities. But it bears witness to what might be the case in
politically impoverished environments, where societies invoke their
distant historical heritage to wreak havoc in such historical moments
as the breakout of the Syrian revolution – albeit in a different
language from what I have described here.

In
many aspects, the Syrian conflict today has turned into a military
war and given way to sectarian and national strife. Many have drawn
on the historical heritage: a Sunni-Shiite divide as Iran intervened
in support of the regime, and an over-Islamization and
sectarianization of the conflict. If this historical heritage is
transient then it can either be overcome by cumulative political
action and under modern or reformist systems; or it can be
perpetuated by discriminatory sectarian regimes. A regime such as the
Assad regime will only produce hideous outcomes of the sort we are
witnessing nowadays. The “Sunni
market”
epitomizes
this hideosity!

I
said at first that I am affiliated with an irreligious minority that
is ostracized by whoever defines themselves by their sect, who are
indeed so many. However, having read what I wrote above, and
contemplated what I could write and narrate in this file, I think I
have to alter my said affiliation as I conclude this article. It is
too early to discuss “freedom to not believe” within the
constitutional framework. So, it suffices to say: “I descend from a
rural peasant family. I might not be a good person, but at least I'm
not kalb
el fayy
[dog of shadows].”

Translated
by Yaaser Azzayyaat

About the author

Abdullah Amin Al-Hallaq is a Syrian writer and researcher writing for a number of newspapers, including Al-Hayat, An-Nahar, and Al-Mustaqbal.

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